


Not The Thing I Was

by IamShadow21



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Abduction, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amnesia, Brainwashing, Captain America: The Winter Soldier Spoilers, Dark, Gen, Hopeful Ending, Hydra (Marvel), Memory Loss, Non-Consensual Electroconvulsive Therapy, POV Second Person, Torture, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-02
Updated: 2014-05-02
Packaged: 2018-01-21 15:32:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1555340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IamShadow21/pseuds/IamShadow21
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You're the Winter Soldier, and the men who use you fear you almost as much as they covet what you can do for them, given the right perch, the right target, the right gun.</p><p>You're the Winter Soldier, but the name sits uneasily on you, like a thorned crown.</p><p>You used to be something else, something more.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not The Thing I Was

You get out of town before the dust has a chance to settle. You don't know who you are any more, and you aren't going to figure it out by staring at the swathe of destruction you had a heavy hand in creating, so you steal a beat up car and drive until you can no longer smell the mix of char and powdered concrete and gore that you don't think you'll ever be able to forget.

Most of what was anchoring you to that place is gone, like your identity is gone, like your free will was taken from you and turned inside out.

You don't know why, but you find yourself sending out mail to the address of the one person you have left who might care. You don't write letters. You don't have the words. You send clumsily folded flowers and birds instead, short-hand for _it's me, I'm still alive_. You think you owe them that, at least.

*

You're sound asleep in a fleabag motel, drunk off your ass, when they snatch you. You barely have the time to break one guy's nose before the sedative kicks in, and then all the fight ebbs from you like a tide.

You wake up in the chair, in time to hear a half-known voice say, _wipe him._

Rough hands shove harsh rubber into your slack mouth, and the world blips out.

*

You wake up in a cell, in a world where even the lines on your own hands are unfamiliar. The food and water they shove in periodically is bitter with drugs, but you eat it anyway, the need for sustenance overriding the fear of being taken unawares. 

The first time someone enters, you attack him, throwing yourself at him wildly, weak and uncoordinated. They beat you, and they don't feed you for what feels like days.

The second time they enter, you watch the intruders warily, but stay your hand.

“Good. Very good. There are no prisons here,” a man says.

“What would you call this?” you ask, your voice rough and alien.

“Order. Order comes through pain,” he says, with a humourless smile.

They show you what they mean.

*

The first time they take you into the outside world, it's so busy and bright that it makes your head whirl. There are half a dozen of them surrounding you, steering you to the rooftop of a building that's dusty and vacant but for pigeons and rodents. You're steady on your feet. You noticed the bitter taste began to fade from your food and drink a week or so ago.

When you climb out into the city air, they hand you a rifle. It feels all wrong, but your hands know what to do. You're sighting down the scope in seconds.

 _You have a mission_ , a man tells you. _A target._

You don't know your own name, but you know how to take a shot, know how to time the squeeze of the trigger between your breaths, between your heartbeats.

A bullet punches neatly through a window several blocks away.

“Good,” a man says, and you're tasered the moment you lower your gun.

You wake up in the chair, with someone trying to force something rubber into your mouth. You strike out, and they strap you down, and the world blips out.

*

“Who am I?” you ask one day.

“You're a weapon,” a man says, and leads you to the chair, and the world blips out.

*

You don't know anything beyond the next mission, the next target.

You take the shot. 

You sit in the chair, and when a man holds out something made of rubber, you open your mouth to receive it, like Communion.

You don't know what Communion is, and you wonder what it could be, before the world blips out.

*

You take a shot, hit a target. You're led into a storage space that smells of urine and damp cement.

There's a chair there, but not _the_ chair, though you don't quite know the significance of a definitive chair, only that this isn't it.

There's a machine beside it that looks antiquated, and straps to hold you down.

 _Go on_ , a man urges, but not _the_ man, you think as the world blips-

blips-

...and you wake. 

You're in a storage container that smells of urine and damp cement. The skin on your temples is alight with an angry kind of pain you associate with burning. You feel bruises around your wrists and ankles from where you bowed against the restraints.

 _It'll have to do for now_ , the new man says, somewhere nearby.

You're eventually unshackled and led to a folding cot that has a familiar, welcoming scent. You've slept here before, you realise, and it's comforting enough to allow you to sleep.

*

“Who am I?” you ask one day, when you've taken the shot and you're being led to the new chair and the machine.

“You're our greatest weapon,” the new man says. “You're the Winter Soldier.”

The world blips, and you wake up in your cot. The cracks in the wall and the creaks in the springs are familiar, so you sleep.

*

You're the Winter Soldier, and the men who use you fear you almost as much as they covet what you can do for them, given the right perch, the right target, the right gun.

You're the Winter Soldier, but the name sits uneasily on you, like a thorned crown.

You used to be something else, something more.

You open your mouth for the rubber bit, and when the world blips, you're ready for it.

*

There used to be someone, you remember, one day, like bolt of lightning. Someone you cared about, someone who cared about you.

They're dead, and it's your fault, you remember a moment later.

This time, when the world blips, you welcome it.

*

The machine isn't doing what they think it's doing, you realise when you're being led to your cot. The men speak freely around you when they've just shocked you, like they expect you to be unaware.

You allow yourself to be laid out on your cot, easy and docile. You lie there, weak and trembling, and think about the someone you can't remember. Sleep doesn't come, but you're smart enough to fake it.

*

You take the shot, and standing in front of the not-so-new chair and the aging machine, you stop in your tracks.

The tension in the room is palpable. You see the man to the right of you thumb open the holster of his stun gun.

“Go on,” the not-so-new man says, and you step forward. The world blips.

“Thought he was going to fight us, that time,” the man on your right says in a rush of relief.

“He don't know enough to fight,” the man on your left disagrees. “He's just an attack dog. Stupider, even. You don't gotta wipe a dog to keep it trained.”

You had a dog, once, you remember. Lying on your cot you imagine the feel of silky fur under your hands, the warmth of another body beside yours.

*

The burns on your temples from the last time have barely begun to heal when they try to wipe you again. Rather than the blip you expect, there's a bang that makes your ears ring, and a shower of buzzing sparks.

The men argue around you in a flurry of shouts and accusations. They've been looking more harried, of late. The cars and vans they drive you out in are clearly stolen. The food is sub-par. You recognise all the faces that surround you, and you're sure there used to be more of them, more highly disciplined, more neatly dressed.

You're the Winter Soldier, but you suspect you're all out in the cold.

You didn't even get a hint of a jolt, but you know that if you act woozy and twitchy enough, they'll think that the machine wiped you before going bang.

You're right, and they put you to bed, unwiped, still squabbling across your not-so-unconscious body about where to find spares for a vintage ECT machine.

*

They find the parts, somewhere. The world blips in a way it hasn't for ages, and it takes you a day and a half to find your way back to what passes for awareness.

This time, they're arguing that they might have broken you.

You act doped out for another eighteen hours or so, just because you can, and because they're afraid for you rather than of you. It's a nice change.

The next time you take a shot, you take a step towards the chair, but they don't strap you in, don't wipe you.

The machine doesn't go away all together, but they wipe you less often, and it takes you less time to come out of the fog when they do.

*

You steal a knife from a guard, and it goes badly for you. They find it and the food you'd been stashing in your cot.

It takes all six of them to break you, to strap you down. You think you kill one of them. At least, he's not moving when they press the paddles to your temples.

They don't bother with the rubber, and when the world rights itself, you think you've cracked a tooth. 

*

Whatever trust there may have been seems to have been broken. They leave you strapped to the chair unless they need you to take a shot. They take you to the bathroom in shackles. 

“Should just put a bullet in your brain,” the not-new man says.

“Who'd be your weapon then?” you ask, and he doesn't answer.

*

You wake up one morning in the chair, and the room is silent. You're alone, and the door is ajar. It's so cruelly taunting freedom that tears run down your cheeks until you hear the distant sounds of footsteps growing closer, of your captors returning.

The figure that appears in the doorway is silhouetted by the light, but something in the way it moves is familiar. _She_ is familiar. “Here, he's here,” she calls over her shoulder, and she's joined by a man, not one of _them_ , but a haunted man who moves with poise, like an acrobat, like someone who's danced high above the earth.

“We're here,” she says, and the relief you feel has no memories to ground itself on, but it feels solid, regardless.

“Who are you?” you ask, and an expression flits across her face, too fast to catch.

“We're friends,” she says smoothly, as though she never faltered. Your confusion must be apparent, because she rests a gentle hand on yours, where you're gripping the chair, and asks simply, “Do you know who you are?”

“I'm the Winter Soldier,” you say, because it's the only name you've got.

“No, you're not,” says the man with the sad eyes. “I am.”

He reaches out a hand of metal and tears the restraints binding you asunder.

“Your name is Clinton Francis Barton,” the woman says, guiding you to your feet, “and we're here to take you home.” 

She tucks a simple origami flower into your hand. It's inexpertly made, but it's lovely, nevertheless. You're still staring at it when they lead you out into the sun.

**Author's Note:**

> I'd seen a bunch of ficlets and story ideas and scenarios (mainly on Tumblr) about where Clint was during the events of Captain America 2. Sometimes he's on a mission and the chain of command goes dark, sometimes he becomes a target and has to run for his life, sometimes he comes back and wonders what the hell happened, and sometimes, he fakes being Hydra and takes down a cell from the inside. 
> 
> All are awesome ideas with a lot of potential, but last night, half asleep or perhaps dreaming, I thought, what if, rather than being scared off Clint because of his possession by Loki, Hydra thinks his previous brainwashing is a BRILLIANT thing, and nabs him to be another asset, like Bucky, and maybe even (when Bucky goes rogue) the cell that's got control of him thinks he should be Bucky's _successor_. 
> 
> I fell in love with the idea and had to write it. And hopefully, I've written it in such a way that some of you will be surprised by the ending. :)


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